who's marchin' ?

[Wattok]

I went to see what the chat was with it all. Couldn't get over the numbers of people in the meadows! There was a massive queue of people waiting to march that snaked all over the meadows. Caught the opening of the live8 on the big screen which was pretty schweet too.

[brooner]

i marched, as i wanted to play with the anarchists.
They have really funny black costumes.

i'm gutted i missed the anarchists, the socialists in their red outfits stood out a bit too. most likely to be more "interesting" tonight with the stop the war lot on the rampage.

[PeterG]

The BBC website has an amazing video of people trying to riot and promptly being surrounded by a ring of yellow.

[mharky]

that was hilarious, i saw it on ITV. a bunch of spoilt drama students in cammo gear and black robes thought that they would release an tidal wave of anarchy by trying to breach then palasde. instead the 200 riot police who were hiding round the corner came out, they got scared when real violence threatened and were then completely surrounded for quite a while by interlinked arm to arm coppers. It was like the scene at the end of Gladiotor where the Emporer meets maxiums in the arena. Brilliant.

Another interesting thing. At the start of the concert they said 2 billion people would watch. Half way through they said that 3 billion would be watching. on the news that evening they said 5 billion people had been watching. are they stupid! there is only 6 billion people in the world, and i'm sure at least 1 billion of them have absolutely no access to a TV. aint 3 billion people living in poverty anyway???

back to some replys at the begining. i know that the concert wasn't abuot raising money. "we don't want your money, we want you" (to sign our lame petision). however, no petition is going to change the G8 leader's minds.

as for raising awareness.
i'm sure most people were fully aware that africa was sufering from extreme poverty. but then, the money that is sent in aid is peanuts compared to the debt which should be cleared. so the 8 people whose attention needs to be gotten are, i think, more than aware that Africa is in the s##t. (at least 7 of them are anyay)

Good gig though. Does anyone else think Bill Gates sounds like Kermit the Frog???

[helen]

ha, theyve gotta be kidding themselves that they even got 1 billion people watching worldwide. if 2-3 billion are living in poverty, and it must be easily that, and im sure hardly anybody in china was watching, thats another billion. and the same for asia. maybe half of the uk, half of america? half of europe...if theyre lucky...but thats a tiny number, more like 300 million, if that

[kenenisa]

Good gig though. Does anyone else think Bill Gates sounds like Kermit the Frog???

dude that is so true. i was thinkin the same thing.

[Meat Market]

Disclaimer: I am not a music pervert like brooner

Forget all this new music pish and even the old fogies, best act was annie lennox what an absolute legend, from the town of aberdeen.

anyone with me??!?!

[Nailest]

Haven't heard much about the anti-war folks today, but if anything's going to kick off I think it'll be at the street party in the West end on Monday afternoon.

[brooner]

feck off ya git!

when i saw bill gates was giving a speech i was wondering what the [nope] was going on. somewhat ironic that one of the worlds richest men from one of the worlds richest companies was giving a speech given that he could probably write off a fair chunk of debt for quite a number of countries from his own pocket. or maybe that was the point.

i'm pretty supportive of the whole clearing of the debt, but it really does need quite a bit more infrastructure which i've certainly not heard anything about (but then to be honest I've not done a whole lot of digging). With the money that would have been repayments on the debt, what guarantees are there that the governments will then choose to spend this on methods of improving the standard of living rather than going and beefing up their armies? And what happens if 5, 10, 50 years down the line they all end up in a terrible state once again through the money being poorly used and are in need of aid once again? Maybe i'm just far too cynical but given the corruption in pretty much every government in the world...

[Lumpy Lycra]

All of which might explain why he's given vast sums of money to Malaria research and not debt repayment. Bill Gates as a good guy is a scary thought

[bendover]

http://www.gatesfoundation.org

with all due respect to those people who think bill gates is just a tosspot, the above foundation could potentially do more for africa than the G8 summit or live8...

[PorkyFatBoy]

Good to see the old guys like entwhistle and gilmour can still rock - i feel sorry for the kids of today - don't imagine we'll still be listening to their bands in 30 years time!

Get with it Mrs H.! Mr Entwistle (former bass player with The Who) died two years ago. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/b ... 071220.stm

Did you mean Roger Waters, who was accompanying Dave Gilmour after 24 years? Floyd were excellent BTW.

[Guest]

Ha ha ha! just testing - meant Pete Townsend - to be honest it was always a bit a blur amazed to see he could still jump around like that. Yes Floyd were great - just disappointed they didn't do Division Bell

[RJ]

The powerful images of TV motivated us worldwide for the Asian Tsunami appeal. The pictures of starving children changed the mindset for Live Aid before. We need images to really get people to 'feel'.

Even with all the aid going to SE Asia this year they are still having trouble spending it properly, avoiding corruption etc. Any idea what the cost of all the administration of these monies has been......

Sponsoring individual projects in Africa; money going from individuals to individuals is more effective. You just need so many more contacts and routes for the aid.

[mharky]

Oxfam take over 70% in administration fees. Although on their website it says the "strive to keep administraion costs to a minimum".

And to be fair to Kermit, he does give $5billion. Which in financial terms is known as a s##t load of cash. And, its his money, he earn't it.

He probably could save some countries in Africa, although not the Sudan, as it a a completely corrupt country ruled by evil aid steeling dictators who do nothing to stop violent militia attacking inocent people, and then when the people move on mass to flee the militia the national police beat them up, burn and buldoze thier camps and try to move them on, all infornt of UN officials... but he shouldnt have too.

Oh and earlier on someone said that its our fault for because we put them in that situation, and then some tard said colonialsim had helped africa. is that in the same way we helped the maori's, aboriginies, american indians, the spanish helped the inca's etc etc...